Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
•
Street markets,
such as Moore Street (produce, noise, and lots of local color, Mon-
Sat 8:00-18:00, closed Sun, near General Post Office), and St. Michan Street (fish, Tue-Sat
7:00-15:00, closed Sun-Mon, behind Four Courts building).
Ireland has produced some of the finest writers in the English and Irish languages, and
Dublin houses some of Europe's best theaters. Though the city was the site of the first per-
formance of Handel's
Messiah
(1742), these days Dublin is famous for its rock bands: U2,
Thin Lizzy, Sinéad O'Connor, and Live Aid founder Bob Geldof's band the Boomtown
Rats all started here.
Abbey Theatre
is Ireland's national theater, founded by W. B. Yeats in 1904 to preserve
Irish culture during British rule (€15-40, generally nightly at 19:30, Sat matinees at
14:00, 26 Lower Abbey Street, tel. 01/878-7222,
www.abbeytheatre.ie
).
Gate Theatre
does foreign plays as well as Irish classics (Cavendish Row, tel. 01/874-4045,
www.gatetheatre.ie
)
. The
Gaiety Theatre
offers a wide range of quality productions
(King Street South, tel. 0818/719-388,
www.gaietytheatre.ie
)
. Street theater takes the
stage in Temple Bar on summer evenings. Browse the listings and fliers at the TI.
O2 Theatre,
once a railway terminus (easy LUAS access), is now sponsored by a hip
phone company. Residents call it by its geographic nickname: The Point. It's considered
the country's top livemusic venue (East Link Bridge, tel. 01/676-6170 or 01/676-6154,
www.theO2.ie
).
At the
National Concert Hall,
the National Symphony Orchestra performs most Fri-
day evenings (€20-40, off St. Stephen's Green at Earlsfort Terrace, tel. 01/417-0000,
www.nch.ie
).
The
Steeple Sessions
are traditional Irish music concerts in the Unitarian Church at the
southwest corner of St. Stephen's Green. The intimate, candlelit setting has fine acoustics
that attract Ireland's best trad musicians for 1.5-hour sessions (€15, May-Sept Tue and Thu
at 20:00, 112 St. Stephen's Green West, tel. 01/678-8470,
www.steeplesessions.com
)
.
Folk music fills Dublin's pubs, and street entertainers ply their trade in the midst of the
party people in Temple Bar and among shoppers on Grafton Street. The Temple Bar area
in particular thrives with music—traditional, jazz, and pop. Although it's pricier than the
